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The Last Sin Eater
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by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
B- Rated R 117 min.
When director Peter Webber and novelist Thomas Harris conceived this project, they set out to answer the question: What happened to Hannibal Lector in his youth to turn him into a serial killer with a taste for human flesh? For the most part, the movie answers this question in Webber’s dark and foreboding tone. During WWII, young Hannibal Lector and his sister Mischa were attacked by a rogue band of Russian soldiers who killed their parents, murdered Mischa, and served her for dinner. Although Harris’ screenplay seems contrived, the scenario delivers a probing examination of Hannibal’s past and his emergence as a human-flesh-eating serial killer. Webber’s frightening mosaic and the use of actors from England, France, and Serbia create a European film-noir mood that contributes to the nightmarish story, dragging the viewer down into the deep well of Hannibal’s twisted mental state.
Traumatized by this horrific event, Hannibal was rescued while near death in a snow-covered field by regular Russian soldiers. The premise of Webber’s scenario insinuates that the boy Hannibal died in that field and a revenge-obsessed demon awoke in his place. Thus the legacy of the serial-killing cannibal, Hannibal Lector, began.
Hannibal is portrayed as a young adult with steely emotional detachment by Gaspard Ulliel, who captured Hannibal’s cold emotionless persona with verve. During his post WWII period, Hannibal moved to France, educated himself in medical science, chemistry, and the martial arts. He even became a medical resident in a hospital where he studied pathology. During his self-education, Hannibal began his extensive detective work to find Mischa’s killers. But the scenario postulates that Hannibal was driven by more than revenge. He was psychotically fascinated by human anatomy and craved bloodletting. He was smart, cunning, and ruthless in his pursuit of his victims.
During his trip back to his old house in the Balkans, Hannibal finds his family’s old photographs, including one of Lady Murasaki Shikibu (Gong Li), who had lost her family as well. He returns to France and finds her. She gives him safe haven while he pursues Mischa’s killers. The two form a strange platonic relationship based on their mutual need for revenge for those war criminals that caused their wartime trauma.
Enter Inspector Pope (Dominic West from The Wire) who is onto Hannibal. He says to Lady Shikibu, “If he kills in France, I’ll arrest him. Keep your snake under control.” Clearly, Inspector Pope sympathizes with Hannibal because he lost his family in the war. In fact, he’s after the same war criminals as Hannibal. But he has a strong sense of duty to reign-in Hannibal’s overkill.
Before long, Inspector Pope finds severed heads of known war criminals and knows it’s the work of Hannibal, but he also knows that Hannibal will not stop at executing the killers of Mischa. So he diligently works the case by bringing Hannibal in for interrogation. But since he has no evidence against him, he lets him go and has him watched. Of course, Hannibal is too smart and ditches Inspector Pope’s surveillance team.
It seems that Inspector Pope is no match for Hannibal’s demonic brilliance and he stays two steps ahead of Pope. At this point in the story, Webber resorts to cheesy horror themes a la the Saw and Hostel franchises. Webber and Harris did their best to honor the Silence of the Lambs, but with no marquee stars and Harris’ less than stellar story, the project had too much to overcome. Although the film is flawed, it’s entertaining in a macabre slasher context, but it suffers from the impossible task of creating a prequel when so much has gone before.
Obviously, revenge doesn’t satisfy Hannibal’s psychotic cravings. He delights in torturing his victims and eating their faces off while they are still alive. One by one, Hannibal tracks down Mischa’s murderers and makes them pay for their atrocities. Even Lady Shikibu is grossed out by Hannibal’s methods, but she supports him and even kills for him. After a particularly bloody scene, Lady Shikibu tells Hannibal he must stop killing and forgive his enemies. “Never,” Hannibal states unequivocally. And so Hannibal Lector is unleashed on the world. Just think; if Jeffery Dahmer had not existed, Hannibal Lector may have been an implausible character. Yes, real life is much stranger than fiction.
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